I'm not a professional either. I started using LR two years ago. Before that I used iphoto which at that time I thought was adequate until I realized what LR could do. You could use Photoshop elements. I got it for like 60 bucks. But if you want to spend more time shooting and less time editing you should make an investment and get LR. Don't underestimate the post process. It's as important as the shooting process. It is part of the creative process.

Hi, I refer cheap in the context that I will only use the software like 4 times a month, and I am not sure if this trend will go on.

I heard lightroom is heading to subscription version, and want to avoid this.

I have a 6D, 28mm 1.8, and recently 75-300 iii, 430ex ii. $150 software is not even yet in the list.

I am already using DPP. I was looking for a software mask and edit selectively portion of image. That could do HDR look photo seamlessly, and non destructive one.

I will try those softwares you guy have mentioned.

No, Lightroom is, and for the near future, will remain available in retail boxed copy (and upgrade pricing). It _is_ available as part of Adobe Creative Cloud (aka call home DRM), but last I heard a perpetual license will remain available for a while to come. This is a worry for me as well, and if they go that direction I'll have to figure something else out, or switch software :\

For doing masking, don't know what GIMP's capabilities are these days, but Photoshop Elements has some of those capabilities. I know there are other pieces of software (forgot which) that focus on HDR merging, so you can look for those. Just export as TIFFs from DPP and pull them into that software which will output a separate TIFF/JPG/PNG.

I was the op. I visited sagelight website and I am glad development or shall I say its moving forward after all. I like sagelight because I haven't tried lightroom, and its cheaper. And I also like how my photo react base from different settings(handle bar) I move. I'm not a professional or expert or pixel peeping, I just find sagelight easy to use.

I want to support sagelight, that is why I am sharing this. It amaze me that all the code, sagelight software and algorithm was coded by just one person..

For quick and dirty edits, I use ACDSEE 17 while I use Photoshop and LR for most of my work. Even the base ACDSEE 17 will edit raw images and save them as 8 bit jpg images. You still have the original 16 bit image if you want to do another edit.